


Paging Doctor Lance

by Witchgirl1234



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Doctor AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2019-09-20 07:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17018634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchgirl1234/pseuds/Witchgirl1234
Summary: Ava Sharpe feels like everything is perfect now that she is expecting a baby with her fiancé but everything soon starts to fall apart when an anachronism means that Sara never met Oliver Queen or got on the Gambit.Now the Legends need to find a way to fix the anachronism by trying to befriend Doctor Sara Lance whilst Ava is unsure whether she should fix things when Sara looks so happy in this new timeline.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the fic that most people seemed to want on my post @withgirl-sq on Tumblr.  
> Need to thank @avasharpecanary for all her help with my ideas as usual XD
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy and please let me know if you're interested in more :)

Chapter one

Sara Lance was on a mission.

After a day of removing Vikings from Victorian England, all she wanted to do was was relax and maybe watch some TV whilst cuddled up to her fiancé.

However, she was disappointed when she returned to find a message from Ava Sharpe saying that she was going to have another late night at work. Apparently, some agent had deleted a lot of data off the system and she was trying to save some of it.

She understood that Ava was now Director Sharpe and she could tell what the job meant to her and the fact that she was undeniably good at it. The Bureau had been running more smoothly than ever since her promotion, but it wasn’t the only thing that was relatively new in her life. Just before Bennett was attacked by Grodd, they discovered that convincing Ava to ‘experiment’ in the future resulted in an unexpected pregnancy.

They almost immediately got engaged since neither of them saw any point in denying that they wanted to be together now that they were going to have a child, but that there was a lot of stress for the woman in the last four months. Getting the bureau in order, trying to defeat Mallus, generally being pregnant and planning a wedding was a lot to deal with.

It was for this reason that Sara felt as though she had barely seen her fiancé in the last couple months and when she did see her she was either too tired to talk, or they spent their limited time discussing practical things.

All Sara wanted was for the woman to relax for one night, even if a childish part of her knew that it was because she wanted her attention, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to want for the mother of her child after so long. She needed to start delegating some of the work to others so that she could chill and if this meant that she got to spend time with her future wife, then that was just a cross that she was willing to bear.

However, to achieve this, she would first need to get the director’s attention.

Now, she could just go to her office and kiss her until she forgot about whatever boring-ass task was involved in recovering data. She had tried it before and it worked long enough to drag her to the local coffee shop so that she could force her to have the one cup of coffee that she was allowed, but the woman had just gone straight back to work after, claiming that she had too much to do to attend movie night. No matter what Zari said, Sara refused to admit that she pouted petulantly throughout the entire movie.

It was for this reason that she decided that she needed to go with a much more dramatic option, something that would make a statement that would make it clear to Ava that she was worried about her and that she needed to start relaxing for the sake of their unborn child. Even if she knew talking to her fiancé would probably have the same effect, that wasn’t really Sara’s style. Besides, didn’t Ava fall in love with Captain Lance? Shenanigans and all?

The blonde thought about this as she hid behind a wall in the Time Bureau, stolen keycard in hand. Even if the Legends weren’t technically fugitives anymore, it was obvious that they didn’t have much respect from the agents who had dedicated years of training and commitment to saving Time. She usually portal-ed right into Ava’s office when she was here since she would typically receive annoyed looks if she used the front entrance.

She pressed her finger to her ear to activate her comm and said, “you ready, Z?”

“Yeah, but I still don’t get why we’re doing this,” the totem bearer replied with the distance sound of typing in the background.

“I swear I’ll explain later,” Sara replied and she could have sworn that she heard the hacker roll her eyes,

The woman could probably guess why they were doing this rather unnecessary task. She was sure that she would argue more if Director Sharpe still hated the Legends, but as it was, she was unlikely to imprison her fiancé. Or at least Sara hoped that Ava would still feel that way after she did this.

As expected, every light and electrical device in the building turned off simultaneously.

Sara smirked at the collective sounds of anger and confusion from the agents.

“Calm down everyone, the back up generator will turn on in a few seconds,” a senior agent called throughout the open plan office. Everyone was silent as they counted and when nothing happened they all started murmuring. Probably complaining about how they were losing out on valuable work time.

Sara snickered slightly as a few people started turning on the torches on their phones and she could see how lost some of them looked. She could tell that they were looking over to the director’s office, probably looking for some direction.

It only took about thirty seconds for Ava to come out of her office to see what was going on. The moment she came into the line of a flashlight, Sara became sure that she was doing the right thing.

The woman still looked beautiful (like she probably always would to Sara) but she also appeared to have not slept in a few days. The captain was wishing that she had done this earlier, especially when her eyes fell down to her slightly swollen stomach.

“What happened to the backup generator?” Ava asked the senior agent who had just made the announcement.

“I’m not sure, director,” he replied, looking somewhat terrified and Sara wondered if it was the first time that she had asked him a direct question. He looked down at his Time Courier as if it would give him the answers that he needed, “I’ll get a technician to see what the problem is…”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sara called before Ava could say anything and she emerged from the corner to everyone’s gaze fixed upon her firmly.

The director took in a deep breath when she saw the familiar cocky smirk on Sara’s face. She usually found almost anything Sara did attractive, but she was rather sleep deprived and maybe a little hormonal, so she was more annoyed than endeared.

She ran her hand across her face and asked, “what did you do, Sara?”

Sara just smirked more widely and crossed her arms over her chest as she walked over to the middle of the office so that she was standing just a little apart from her fiancé.

“ _I_ didn’t do anything,” Sara replied, attempting to remain as innocent as she possibly could and she chuckled lightly when Ava narrowed her eyes at her, “but I do happen to know that the power will come back on if you come with me.”

Director Sharpe scowled and looked over her shoulder to see if any of her agents were finding this funny, but they all had completely blank expressions. They definitely knew that it wouldn’t be smart to react to what was clearly personal.

“Are you seriously blackmailing me?” Ava hissed.

Sara just shrugged and didn’t make any reply, she didn’t really think that question required an answer considering what her usual plans entailed.

The director took in a deep breath to calm herself down, she honestly didn’t want to yell at Sara. The longer that she was in her presence, the more she was reminded how much she missed her anyway and going back to the Waverider did sound nice. She was so tired and she couldn’t help but think about how good it would feel to be in her fiancé’s arms. And this was most definitely the type of thing about Sara that she once found irritating but now she loved about her. She had to respect how she was willing to do anything to take care of those around her, even if she sometimes went about it in rather ridiculous ways.

She had become aware of how unhealthily she was dealing with all of the stress, which was why she knew she was too tired to try and convince Sara to get Zari to put the generator on.

Ava rolled her eyes and reached down to press a button on her courier to open a portal to the Waverider.

She wordlessly stepped through it and Sara grinned widely as she saw the genuinely surprised expression on the agent’s faces. The moment that the woman was through the portal the lights came back on and the captain moved to follow her.

“I’ll return your director to you around midday tomorrow,” she called before the portal closed behind her and she found herself in the captain’s quarters.

As soon as it closed, Ava said, “you’re an idiot.”

Sara just continued smiling and walked over to the other woman so that she could place her hand onto her stomach as she simultaneously pushed herself up to place a kiss to the other woman’s lips.

“I missed you,” she replied, “besides, you clearly need sleep and I sleep better with you in my bed, so it seemed like a win-win situation.”

Ava sighed, though there was no real annoyance behind it, she was too tired.

“I still have so much work to do,” she murmured, as her eyes were already drooping.

“All you’re doing tonight is sleeping and then we’re talking about how stressed you are,” Sara replied as she pulled the woman over to the bed. Ava sat down and watched as the captain walked over to the drawers to grab her some PJs to get out of her suit.

Five minutes later, she lay down on her side and she hummed as she felt Sara put her arms around her.

“You’re an idiot, but I love you,” Ava sighed.

Sara laughed and replied, “I’ll just focus on the second part, babe.”

s

Ava groaned.

Consciousness was returning to her and she honestly didn’t want to wake up yet.

Waking up would mean going to work, which would mean that she would have to leave her fiancé’s arms.

Even if ‘fiancé’ had been a title she could attribute to Sara Lance for a few months now, she was still somewhat giddy at the prospect. They hadn’t been together that long in the grand scheme of things, but they both knew that their relationship would last. They probably would have had a baby together eventually anyway, so what if it was unplanned and practically at the beginning of their relationship?

Honestly, the main thing that Ava couldn’t wait for was to be ‘Ava Lance’, she had even caught herself doodling the name during a particularly boring meeting.

Despite all of these thoughts about how she couldn’t wait to be a wife and a mother, she was also acutely aware of all of the work she needed to do in preparation for her maternity leave.

She didn’t want to return after a year to discover that the Time Bureau had gone to shit. However, all that extra work meant thats he was always tired and missing Sara, which was why she wasn’t too mad about being ‘kidnapped’ the night before. A part of her had been waiting for a while for Sara to come and tell her to relax. Even if she didn’t expect her to interrupt everyone’s work flow to impart the message, she wasn’t too surprised that it happened.

If she didn’t love the beautiful idiot, she was sure that she would have been forced to arrest her.

As it was, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that the Legends were safe as long as they didn’t break time (again). It was fairly obvious that the director wouldn’t imprison her fiancé. She was sure there would be some pushback on that unspoken agreement if a happy director didn’t make for a more relaxed working environment.

The agents were clearly not as afraid of her as they had first been before her first date with Captain Lance. But as long as they still respected her, she wasn’t too bothered by this, especially since she was fairly sure who she would chose if she were ever to be forced to chose between the bureau and her future family.

“I can hear you thinking,” Sara grumbled, “go back to sleep.”

Ava smiled at the demand, though now she wasn’t drop dead tired, she wasn’t quite as prepared to do as she was told.

She turned around in the captain’s arms and said, “I need to go back to work, I didn’t finish getting that data back…”

Sara let out an exasperated sigh and opened her eyes, smiling slightly when she saw just how much better Ava looked after a night’s sleep.

“I got Zari to deal with that and Gary sent a memo around to say that you wouldn’t be in until lunch,” Sara replied, “so you don’t need to go back to work.”

Ava opened her mouth, about to come up with one of the other million things that she needed to do. But she closed it when she realised that they were either not emergencies or that Sara would probably have a solution if she brought them up.

“I also gave your to-do list to Gary, he said he can get the admin team to do most of it,” Sara added, “and it will be faster for you to check their work instead of doing it yourself.”

“How long have you been planning this?” Ava asked.

“Not that long actually, Zari said the Time Bureau’s firewalls are ‘pathetic’ and Gary got really excited when I asked him for help. He’s worried about you too,” Sara replied and moved her hand so that she could move some of the hair out of the other woman’s face.

Ava sighed but was smiling, there was a time when she wouldn’t have though the Legend’s were capable of such co-ordination, but she had long since learned better than underestimating the merry band of misfits.

She leaned over to press a kiss to her lips and smiled contently as her head hit the pillow.

Sara drew her eyebrows together and asked, “you have no objections? I kind of thought you would take more convincing to take it easy…”

The director shook her head and replied, “honestly, if you tried to convince me when I was at work, I probably wouldn’t have listened, but here…” she trailed off and looked down to her stomach.

Sara just nodded in understanding as she blew out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding since she started this plan, she honestly hadn’t expected it to work. She didn’t think she would ever make a very good fiancé but if she didn’t say so herself now, she was pretty sure that she was crushing it.

“Does this mean you’ll go back to sleep?” the captain asked.

Ava quirked an eyebrow and spared a look at the clock to see it was 7.00 am, she couldn’t remember when she had last had so much time to just be with Sara with no looming deadlines. She also couldn’t think of a single person for who she would agree to be four hours late to work for. Then again, she was pretty sure there wasn’t anything that she wouldn’t do for her future wife/

“Is sleep really the best use of our time?” Ava asked.

Sara’s eyebrows shot up and she smirked as she replied, “I guess that would be a good way for you to relax, Director Sharpe.”

“Oh, it definitely would, Captain Lance,” she laugh and accepted the passionate kiss as her hands came instinctively to the other woman’s hips.

s

In the weeks that followed, Ava started delegating some of her work to those she trusted (luckily most at the Bureau seemed to embrace the extra responsibility as a sign of good things to come).

This meant that Ava tended to only work her contracted hours, which left a lot of time for her personal life. She soon found that planning for her future was a lot more enjoyable when she wasn’t trying to fit it in between meetings.

This was especially  because it was much simpler to include Sara now, who apparently had a lot of ideas about their wedding.

Ava sometimes forgot that the former assassin had once been a completely normal young woman who probably thought more about her wedding than throwing knives and the stability of the timeline.

The director no longer spent her nights in her office, the latest she left was 6.30 pm and the more time she found herself sleeping on the Waverider, the more she wanted to try and find somewhere more permanent to live. They couldn’t rise their child on a time ship and her apartment only had one bedroom so the pair had even started looking for a house in Star City.

Overall, the future was looking bright even if she had spent the last five years thinking all she wanted was to be director. Now she had that position, she knew that there was no way she could have been as happy as she was being engaged to such a wonderful disaster who was surprisingly really good at making plans.

Waking up in Sara’s arms was probably the best thing about the whole situation, which was why Ava found herself pouting on that particular morning when she discovered she was alone in the captain’s quarters.

The director took a moment to force herself to wake up without the morning kiss she had become accustomed to. She pushed herself up by her hands and looked around the room and instantly noticed that it didn’t look anything like it did when she had fallen asleep.

Sara’s room had never been particularly cluttered, but there had been a personal touch to the room to let people know that someone actually lived in it. That ‘personal touch’ was mostly in the form of photographs of them together and a framed sonogram.

Now, though, as she looked around, she couldn’t see a single photograph that had once held pride of place one the captain’s room.

Her eyebrows drew together as her tired mind tried to figure out what was going on, but her eyebrows shot up when her gaze fell upon the clock and her mind registered that it was 9.23 am. Sara had promised the night before to make sure that she was awake on time since she had a meeting with the president at 9.30 am precisely.

She momentarily forgot about the irregularities in the room and she shot out of bed, just about managing to not get tangled in the sheets,

However, when her foot hit the floor, she still lost her balance and she stumbled down to the ground.

Her hand came up protectively to her stomach. But her hand came into contact with toned abs that she hadn’t felt on her own body for a couple months.

She looked down to see that her top wasn’t slightly tight as it had been the night before and she lifted it up to confirm that the bump was indeed not there. Ava swallowed hard and moved her other hand over so she could run her index finger along her bare ring finger.

Even if the thought made her want to cry, it was very possible that Sara could have removed all the pictures and taken her grandmother’s ring back. However, she was pretty sure that she didn’t have the ability to reverse a pregnancy without her noticing.

She took a deep breath and tried to moisten her mouth so that she could get a single word out.

“Gideon?” She asked.

“Yes Captain Sharpe?” The AI asked.

Ava stared blankly at t he ceiling until Gideon asked, “are you okay, captain?”

The director looked around her, trying to figure out if this was some kind of elaborate prank. But she knew for a fact that Sara had banned her team from messing with her whilst she was pregnant.

“Captain?” Ava repeated, “why did you call me that?”

Gideon was silent for a couple seconds as if she was searching her databases for the correct answer, before she replied, “Rip Hunter assigned you as my captain when he took over the directorship of the Time Bureau, or have you forgotten?”

“What about Sara?” Ava asked, now very close to hyper-ventilating. Her mind was slowly coming to the conclusion that there was some kind of anachronism affecting Sara and from her experience that meant a premature death, which was a thought that had her pretty close to a panic attack.

“I’m afraid I have never had a captain by that name, Captain Sharpe,” Gideon replied.

“Yes you have!” Ava shouted as she shot to her feet in a kind of defiance, “Captain Sara Lance, she was your captain yesterday!”

The AI didn’t say anything and Ava blew out a frustrated breath as she walked towards the door.

“Gideon, please ask the team to meet me on the bridge,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Of course, captain.”

Ava made it to the bridge a few moments later and came straight up to the main console on which she started typing.

“Hey cap, what’s up?” Nate called closely followed by Ray and Zari. Amaya and Mick came in next and yellow lightening announced the arrival of the last team member. Though, when Ava looked around them, she couldn’t get passed the idea that there was someone very important missing,

Ava looked back over to Nate who frowned when he noticed how pale she looked.

“Are you okay, Ava?” He asked.

“Do you really think I’m your captain?” Ava sighed, she had hoped that the anchoronism hadn’t solidified.

The historian frowned and spared a look over to his teammates, he was about to ask her if she was okay again, but the words died on his tongue as an image of another person standing in Ava’s position flashed in his mind.

“Oh my god, where’s Sara?” He asked.

The rest of the team had a similar transformation in expressions and Ava let out a sigh of relief when it became clear that she wasn’t the only one who remembered her fiancé.

“Weren’t you pregnant yesterday?” Mick grunted and the others followed his gaze, but most of them didn’t stare long.

Ava rolled her eyes at the arsonist and looked back at the console.

“Gideon, cold you please scan the timeline for any anachronisms affecting Sara Lance, born in Starling General on the 25th December 1987?” Ava asked.

“It would appear that there is a level six anachronism originating in 1990. Quentin Lance was prevented from submitting a scholarship application for his eldest daughter to attend Starling Grammar Elementary School where she should have met Oliver Queen and Thomas Meryln. As a result Sara Lance was never invited on the Queen’s Gambit in 2007 and never joined the League of Assassins.”

Ava stared at the console blankly. That had certainly not been what she was expecting. She could deal with resolving the anachronism if it meant saving Sara’s life, but it sounded as though it was far from endangered. In fact, she might just be safer than she ever had been in the other timeline.

“How can Sara never joining the Legends only be a level six?” Ray asked with his eyebrows pinched together.

As if on cue, the entire ship lurched to the side and everyone reached out frantically to grab something, though Zari and Nate just missed as they hit the ground with groans.

Ava’s hand came up to her stomach again while the other one held onto the main console and she tried not to wince when she still felt nothing there. Despite all the times she wished for the pregnancy to be over, she’d always thought that she would have a baby at that point, not wondering if she would be able to resolve the anachronism that prevented her from meeting her future wife.

She forced herself to file the thought away for later, hopefully when they already had Sara back.

Ava turned away from the console to look out of the window to the swirling energy that was basically time. There were a few cracks from before the defeat of Mallus that the bureau and Legends were working to fix, but it appeared as though the cracks were attempting to fix themselves as new cracks appeared around them.

“What the hell?” Zari asked.

Nate pushed himself up staring with wide eyes out the window.

“Without Sara, we would have never had the order to break time, but then we should still be in Thawne’s alternate reality…” he said slowly, clearly trying to figure out the theory.

“But he was erased from existence by the Spear of Destiny,” Ray argued, “We can’t go back to a reality made by someone who doesn’t exist…”

“Sara was the one who erased him though,” Nate shot back.

“Do you know what they’re talking about?” Wally asked Zari as he helped her up.

The totem bearer just shrugged and replied, “I try not to worry about stuff that happened before I joined.”

The speedster nodded with his mouth twisted into a frown. It was times like this that he wished someone would actually explain time travel to him.

“So she wasn’t there to wield the spear.” Ray said, ignoring the newest team member’s sidebar, “but that doesn’t change the fact that his time remnant doesn’t exist anymore. The timeline is trying to fix itself because Sara didn’t tell us to break it, but the fact that it’s supposed to be broken to keep us out of the alternate reality means that fixing it is breaking it.”

“That makes sense!” Nate announced triumphantly.

“Does it?” Amaya asked, squinting as her mind worked overtime to go through everything they said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ava announced before either Ray or Nate could launch into another explanation, “either way we need to resolve the anachronism in 1990 and get Sara back.”

“Okay, how do we do that?” Zari asked.

“We need to figure out what stopped Quintin from submitting the application,” Ave replied.

“If I may captain,” Gideon interrupted and Ava sighed, there didn’t seem to be any point in telling an AI programmed to think she was her captain to call her anything else, “there is currently a level fourteen anachronism in 2018 Star City that requires your immediate attention, though details are still not completely known.”

Ava ran her hand over her face because of course there was.

“We can fix that and find out from Sara what happened,” Amaya suggested.

“You just want to see what she’s like, don’t you?” Nate shot back.

The totem bearer just shrugged and made no attempt to refuse the accusation.

Ava rolled her eyes and said, “okay…Gideon where can we find Sara?”

“Credit card records show that Doctor Sara Lance is currently buying coffee in the nearest cafe to Starling General,” Gideon replied

“Doctor Sara Lance?” Ava repeated and she could only assume that she was wearing a similarly shocked expression to the rest of the team.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

_Captain Sara Lance had yet another another mission; to get her pregnant fiancé to eat lunch._

_Since the ‘kidnapping’ that took place a couple weeks ago, this didn’t usually take too much effort. However, when the director was particularly stressed, Sara took the tactic of just distracting her until she realised that she would waste less time by just eating._

_This time, however, Gary informed her that the director had been having a very bad day, probably exacerbated by the hormones. That meant thats he had an added mission that day of cheering the woman up whilst making sure she ate something green. Director Sharpe would be greater in the long run, even if Sara was sure she was about to be yelled at._

_With the charming grin that she knew Ava secretly loved, she knocked on the director’s door, clutching the two takeout boxes a she rocked on her heels._

_“Come in,” Ava called._

_Sara pushed the door open and strolled in with her usual level of confidence that she wasn’t really feeling on the inside. She was fairly certain that she knew her future wife well enough to know how to brighten her day, but pregnancy was just one nine month long curve ball. Though she was sure that with all of her elite training, she would be able to handle it, especially since the result was going to be an actual person who was going to be the perfect mix between herself and Ava._

_“Hey baby,” the captain said as she made it to the desk and slipped into the chair without permission that she was pretty sure she didn’t need at this point._

_Ava looked up from her laptop that she was typing at and her expression softened for a moment before she looked back down to the screen and continued typing._

_“I really don’t have time for lunch, Sara,” she deadpanned._

_“I’m sure the Director of the Time Bureau has time for whatever she wants,” Sara replied with a small laugh._

_Ava sighed and looked up from the screen again, this time removing her fingers from the keys._

_Sara smiled triumphantly at the eye contact she managed to get and pushed the food container over to the frowning woman._

_“You’ll be more productive if you eat, Aves,” Sara said, “and I even got you one of those gross kale salads you like.”_

_Ava rolled her eyes and shook her head, “I have to carry out interviews in ten minutes…”_

_“Sounds like plenty of time to me.” the captain replied and opened up the container. The scent of chicken hit Ava’s nose and she felt her stomach jump almost pleadingly._

_“I need to be ready for the meeting…”_

_Sara frowned and tilted her head as she inspected the expression on her fiancé’s face. She thought that she was in a bad mood because of general stress, but she looked genuinely upset about something._

_“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sara asked and reached over to place her hand over the director’s._

_“Nothing…” Ava said but refused to meet the other woman’s eyes but she let out an involuntary sniffle which seemed to open the floodgates and tears actually began to fall down her face._

_“Oh baby,” Sara said and raised from her chair to go over to her. She grabbed her hand and pulled the taller woman over to the couch that the captain had demanded be put in her future wife’s office in the event that she wanted to distract in comfort._

_Once she was sure the director was firmly on the couch, she sat as close as possible to her and reached up to wipe a tear away._

_“What’s wrong?” she asked again in a soft whisper._

_Ava sniffled and shook her head again, “I…it’s really stupid…”_

_“If you’re upset then it’s not stupid,” Sara said firmly._

_A smile tugged at the corner of Director Sharpe’s lips and she finally looked at Sara who was staring at her with more love and adoration than she had ever expected to see from another person._

_“In my meeting this morning, the commissioner made an offhand comment about how he’d been worried about the new director requesting maternity leave the moment he found out I was a woman…”_

_“I will destroy him,” Sara replied instantly, her fists already clenching._

_Ava actually laughed at the deadly serious look on the other blonde’s face and shook her head as she reached over to place her hands over one of the clenched fists._

_“Don’t worry I’m used to sexist humour and I usually don’t let it get to me but…” she sighed and placed her palm over her slightly swollen stomach._

_Sara allowed another moment to try and make the anger roll off her. How dare anyone make Ava feel bad for being a great director while making an actual freaking person?!_

_“So you’re skipping lunch to prove a point?” Sara asked after she finally calmed down._

_Ava shrugged and pushed herself further into the couch and replied, “I guess I’ve been agitated all day and work calms me down.”_

_“It didn’t look very calming?” the captain shot back._

_“You didn’t see me earlier.”_

_Sara laughed and pushed herself back so that she could place her head on the director’s shoulder._

_“I can see why Gary sounded so scared when he called me.”_

_Ava hummed in agreement and brought her hand around Sara’s waist to bring her closer._

_The pair were silent for a moment but the moment ended when the door opened and Gary appeared._

_“The prospective cadets are here for interview, Director Sharpe,” Agent Green announced, refusing to look at the pair since he thought he would be murdered for interrupting._

_Ava spared a glance to Sara who sighed with a small pout and a smile overcame the taller woman’s face._

_“Can you carry out the initial interviews Gary? I haven’t had lunch yet…”_

_Gary nodded and turned on his heels to do as told._

_Once the door closed, Sara pushed herself up and looked at her fiancé with a quirked an eyebrow, she was still surprised sometimes when Ava chose her over work, but she had a feeling she would be getting used to pretty soon._

_“If the commissioner thinks I’m an invalid, I might as well go along with it when it suits me,” Ava shrugged and gestured towards the salad she had increasingly wanted the more she smelled it._

_Sara laughed and jumped off the couch to grab the two containers and when she fell down to the couch she placed a kiss to her cheek._

A high-pitched screeching brought Sara out of the blissful dream and she drew her eyebrows together with a groan.

Blindly, she flailed her arm around in search of the device. She finally found her phone and pressed the snooze button, but when the sound didn’t stop her mind caught up with the fact that it was the tone for an incoming call and not an alarm.

She sighed and forced her eyes open so she could press the ‘accept’ button.

“Hello?” she said into the device that she had placed on loud speaker so that she didn’t have to focus on putting it to her ear.

“Hey,” came through the phone and Sara sighed and shook her head, slowly coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going back to sleep that morning.

“What’s up Laurel?” she asked.

“I need a favour but you sound mad, did I interrupt another ‘dream woman’ dream?” the lawyer shot back, trying to sound serious but Sara could hear the mocking behind her words.

“You know, mocking me isn’t the best way to get a favour?” Sara replied and finally looked at the clock to see it was 6.30. She didn’t start work till 10! She rolled her eyes and pushed herself up.

“I wasn’t mocking you, Sara, I fully support you being in love with a figment of your imagination,” Laurel replied, completely failing to hide the sarcasm from each word.

“I have never said I’m in love with her,” Sara sighed, though she felt her stomach twist in protest, the words felt wrong even as she said them, but she wouldn’t admit that to her very rational-minded sister.

“Is that why you refused to go out with Lexie?” Laurel asked.

“i refused to go out with Lexie because I don’t date doctors,” Doctor Lance replied and actually grabbed the phone and got out of bed to turn on her coffee machine.

“Because you would obviously have nothing in common?”

“Because if I wanted to talk about medicine, I’ll just pick up extra shifts at work,” Sara said and pressed the button on the coffee machine.

She could practically feel her older sister rolling her eyes, before she asked, “so what’s dream girl’s job?”

Sara bit the inside of her cheek. She’d told Laurel about Ava Sharpe, who had been dubbed ‘dream girl’ because Laurel refused to ‘name a fantasy’. However, she hadn’t told her about the more fantastical parts of the little narrative her mind had come up, and she certainly didn’t want to say, ‘she’s the director of the Time Bureau’ as if it would prove her point.

“I don’t know, Lau,” Sara sighed, “I’m guessing analysing me wasn’t the point of calling me at the butt crack of dawn?”

“6.30 isn’t the ‘butt crack of dawn’ and I was hoping that you could give me a ride to work, my car still won’t start…” Laurel replied and Sara could just see the pleading look on her face as if she didn’t already know what the answer would be.

Sara took a deep swig of the coffee since she knew she probably wouldn’t be sleeping for a while considering she had agreed to be on call for a few hours following her shift.

“What time do you start?” the doctor asked.

“8.30, I thought I could buy you breakfast to say ‘thank you’,” Laurel said.

“Give me half an hour,” Sara sighed, very much trying to make this seem like an imposition, she figured that Laurel would buy her an extra coffee if she tried hard enough.

“Thank you!” Laurel said triumphantly, “you can tell me about your dream when you pick me up!”

“Okay Sigmund,” Sara deadpanned and pressed ‘end call’ so that she could get ready, but she shook her head at the couple seconds of her sister snickering.

S

Being captain was a strange experience for Ava.

The Legends actually listened to her and she wasn’t sure that she liked it. She had the distinct feeling that if Sara had been in charge the plan would have been far more...unconventional. If Sara had been there, it would have been more fun.

The team obeyed her orders to find baby William Shakespeare before he was lost to the foster system and the English language as they knew it would be forever altered.

He was returned to his family in early modern England rather efficiently (at least by Legend’s standards) and Gideon assured them that the anachronism was resolved and they could focus their efforts on finding Sara.

Director Sharpe (or was it Captain Sharpe?) was fairly certain that the team were only so efficient because they were eager to see what their regular captain would be like if she was never trained by the League of Assassins.

To be fair, Ava was rather curious herself.

Sara had told her a while ago that she would have probably tried to become a doctor is she never boarded the Gambit, though she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t have gotten far considering that she had been a pretty rebellious daughter for a while. Apparently, not knowing Oliver Queen helped her to achieve her dream.

However, there was a part of her that was worrying that her achieving her dream would mean that she wouldn’t want to return to her original timeline.

For all that she knew, Doctor Lance was both killing it in her professional and personal life. Ava wasn’t quite sure that she could handle it if Sara was happier than she could ever make her.

“What’s the plan again?” Nate asked through the comma which forced Ava out of her spiral of anxiety as she and Amaya walked towards the Cafe that Gideon had informed them Sara was currently in.

“We find Sara and see if she has any memories from the original timeline,” Amaya replied, “ if she remembers then she can just tell us how to fix the past.”

“And if she doesn’t remember?” Citizen Steel asked.

“Then we can figure out a plan from there.”

“Or we could just kidnap her and get her to answer our questions, she’s not a ninja in this timeline,” Zari suggested through the comm.

Ava drew her eyebrows together and looked over to Amaya who gave her a reassuring smile as if to say that Zari was obviously joking...probably.

Ava rolled her eyes, she really couldn’t wait to go back to being the director of the Time Bureau, where kidnapping would not have been suggested.

“Okay, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, we are not kidnapping Sara,” Ava reiterated and she and Amaya came to a stop outside of the cafe, “and we’re here.”

“Can you see her? What does she look like?” Ray asked excitedly.

“we haven’t gone in yet, Ray,” Amaya chuckled.

“Well what are you waiting for?” Nate and Ray asked at the same time.

Ava took in a deep breath and nodded as she motioned towards the building, not quite sure what she wanted to see when she got in.

-Meanwhile-

“Dad stop it,” Laurel laughed.

“What, I can’t be proud of my lawyer and doctor daughters?” Quentin asked, with a slight touch of indignation in his voice.

“Oh no you definitely can,” Sara replied, “but that doesn’t mean that you had to tell the barista.”

“Leave your father alone, he’s just proud,” Dinah chuckled and placed a kiss to her husband’s cheek who was trying not to pout.

The two younger Lances each rolled their eyes.

Quentin smiled at the pair and was about to try and move the conservation along but a beeping from his youngest daughter’s pocket had him groaning in frustration. He was determined to have a family get together when she wasn’t on back-up call.

“Calm down, it’s probably just a scared intern,” Sara chuckled as she pulled the pager out and looked at the code, “...or maybe not...”

The blonde slipped out of the booth and placed a kiss to both of her parent’s foreheads and said, “I’ll call you later?”

The captain and the professor both nodded and Quentin added, “go and save someone’s life, baby.”

Sara rolled her eyes and shared an exasperated look with her sister before she grabbed her bag and made her way out of the cafe.

She was so focused on digging her keys out of her bag that when she opened the door she didn’t noticed some was walking towards it until she collided with them and her keys fell to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” Sara said and quickly reached down to grab her keys and looked up at the woman she had walked into.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open slightly.

The other woman’s expression mirrored her own as they stared at each other for a moment.

Doctor Lance wanted to ask her if her name was ‘Ava Sharpe’ and if she knew anything about the Time Bureau but she bit her tongue to stop herself.

She didn’t want someone who was most likely coincidentally identical to her dream girl to think that she was insane.

Plus, she had an emergency page to answer and she couldn’t justify tardiness with tales of meeting someone who part of her couldn’t help but dub as her ‘soulmate’.

Ava, on the other hand, couldn’t really form words as she took in the sight of this alternate version of her fiancé.

Everything about the blonde was lighter and there was something about the sight of her wearing scrubs, looking more professional than she had ever seen her. She also looked far more normal than she had ever seen her, which was not something she would have associated with the woman just yesterday.

“I’m really sorry again,” Sara said and forced herself to step around the taller blonde and frowned at the other woman who was looking at her with her brows drawn together. Amaya was sure that she saw a mix between shock and familiarity on Sara’s face when she first saw Ava, but if she remembered her fiancé then surely she would have said something that wasn’t an apology.

Ava opened her mouth to say that she was okay, but saying something like that to Sara after she thought there was a chance that she had lost her felt insufficient.

“I...err...” Ava stuttered but was saved when the door opened behind her.

“Hey Sara,” Laurel called while looking down at her phone, “can you give me a ride to the courthouse on your way?”

The lawyer looked up at her sister, away from the SOS she had been sent about her latest case and noticed her sister was apparently engaged in some kind of interaction with two women she had never seen before.

Laurel quirked an eyebrow when she saw a light hue of blush playing across Sara’s cheeks and she spared a glance over to the taller blonde who bore a striking resemblance to the vivid image Sara had painted in her mind when she described her dream girl.

The doctor seemed to finally register the fact that her sister was here and what she asked for.

She cleared her throat and nodded, “sure,” she said, “sorry again,” she added before she motioned for Laurel to follow her to her car.

Ava watched them go with a lump in her throat with her eyes glued to Laurel the entire time.

Despite everything going wrong in that moment, all she could think about was when Sara was telling her how much Laurel would have liked her.

The director felt a hand on her shoulder and looked over to Amaya who was attempting to give her a reassuring smile.

However, Ava wasn’t sure that there was anyway that she could reassure her about the fact that to fix the anachronism, Sara was going to have to lose her sister again.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

“So…she’s like actually a doctor?” Nate asked while the team looked at the picture of Sara on the screen. Gideon had hacked into Starling General’s database to get the ID picture since the rest of the Legends had insisted that they wanted to see it no matter how much Ava had insisted that it would be a waste of time.

Apparently, them listening to her hadn’t lasted long, she couldn’t say that she was surprised.

“Yes Nate, we already knew that,” Ava sighed and shook her head.

“Yeah I get that…” Nate said. “but it’s just that…I can’t imagine Sara going to Med School, can you really see her in lectures?”

“Well, she’s not really our Sara,” Ray supplied, “this is a Sara who never met Oliver, so I think that she would obviously be different.”

Ava crossed her arms and looked down at the floor with her lips in a tight line. Somehow her mind was instantly connecting ‘different’ to ‘happier’. Right now, she wasn’t sure that it was something that she could deny.

Even in their brief interaction outside of the coffee shop, Sara looked to be lighter.

As a doctor. Her life wasn’t constantly in danger, she never had to go through years of trauma, and perhaps most importantly, her family was whole again. A pang went through Ava’s chest at the thought and she had to resist the urge to place her hand on her stomach.

She knew that there was a distinct possibility that Sara was happier in this timeline than she could ever have been in the original timeline, but she also knew that there was no way that she would personally be happy in a timeline in which Sara didn’t need her and their unborn child.

“Ava,” Amaya said softly next to her and she looked up to see that the entire team were looking at her with concern written across their faces. She realised that she must have missed whatever it was that they had said and she h    ad little doubt that her expression was most likely showing everything that she was feeling in that moment. Oddly enough though, she couldn’t really find it within herself to be mad that this merry band of idiots were currently seeing her vulnerable. There was very little doubt that they must know what she was currently thinking about her fiancé.

She cleared her throat anyway and uncrossed her arms.

Wallowing in the possibility that Sara was happier in this timeline didn’t changed the fact that there was no way that it could stay this way forever.

Time needed Sara Lance to break it so that it wouldn’t fold in on itself.

“Okay so we need to find out why Quentin didn’t submit the scholarship application and since we’ll only have one chance to fix it, it would be better to find out in this time before we go back and fix it,” she announced and the rest of the team nodded in agreement.

“Well we can’t exactly ask her, why would she know?” Ray asked.

The team was silent for a few seconds and Ava bit the inside of her cheek, she was pretty sure that they would already have some insane plan if Sara was currently their captain.

“So we need to ask Quentin,” Zari replied, “…it could come up during the ‘meet the parents’ dinner.”

The Legends all collectively looked over to Ava expectantly and the woman rolled her eyes, though a part of her wanted to smile at the thought. After all, a ‘meet the parents’ meal would likely involve Laurel who she had wished she could have met more with all of the stories that Sara had told her. Especially when she saw the smile tug at the corner of her fiancé’s lips when she talked about the sister that she missed with all of her heart.

She couldn’t help but wonder whether her Sara would jump at this opportunity or if she would find the experience too difficult to get through.

“That’s idiotic,” Ava deadpanned, “it would take at least a month for her to introduce a partner to her family and that’s assuming that she’s even single…” _also assuming that this version of Sara would even be interested in Ava._

_“_ I’m pretty sure she’s single,” Amaya supplied.

“How could you possible know that?” Ava sighed.

The totem-bearer smiled at the expression on the woman’s face. She had obviously been too enraptured by the sight of Doctor Lance to notice the way that Sara was looking at her outside of the coffee shop. The blonde had a look of shock and familiarity on her face, but the expression also held some of what Amaya used to witness whenever Captain Lance looked at her fiancé. Just because she had yet to actually meet Ava in this timeline, Amaya had the distinct feeling that the connection between the pair was still very much intact.

“Well if she isn’t, we can come up with another plan,” Zari suggested when it became clear that Amaya was too deep in thought to come up with something to say.

Ava sighed deeply, she couldn’t believe that she was very close to agreeing to this considering all of the issues there were with the plan; however, she couldn’t think of a single other option. It wasn’t as if there would be some public record of why Quentin didn’t take the paperwork to the school.

“I can’t exactly just go up to her and ask her our, she’ll think I’m following her,” Ava retorted.

“If you run into her at the hospital, she won’t think that you’re following her. It will be like a meet-cute,” Zari shot back.

“And why would I be in the hospital?” The director sighed, she could already sense that some stupid suggestions were about to be made.

There was a silence in the room as everyone realised what was going to be suggested and within five seconds, everyone put their fingers on their nose (with the exception of Ava).

Zari sighed heavily when she realised that she was the last one. She was about to suggest that Ava should be the one, but this version of Sara Lance was probably too ethical to date a patient.

“Fine,” the totem-bearer said with a heavy sigh,

“What?” Ava asked, looking around the team trying to figure out why half of them were currently smirking.

“You can meet Sara if you’re visiting your friend in the hospital,” Ray said.

Ava pinched the bridge of her nose, she was about to open her mouth to argue that they had no way to know that they would definitely get to see Sara and there was also the fact that this plan would involve hurting Zari enough so that she would have to be a patient.

However, before she could say anything, Gideon seemed to anticipate her arguments.

“If I may, Captain Sharpe, I believe I may have a way that this would work,” she said.

Ava rolled her eyes, she’d already tried to tell the AI to call her Director Sharpe or Ava, but the computer had insisted that she needed someone to be her captain in this timeline.

“Yes?” Ava asked, looking at the ceiling hopefully. Maybe a super-futuristic AI would have a way to make this incredibly easy?

“According to Doctor Lance’s schedule, she will be spending her next shift looking after a VIP patient with a passing resemblance to Miss Tomaz,” Gideon explained and pulled up a picture of the woman onto the screen.

Ava relaxed slightly when she saw that the woman did in fact look like Zari, it was actually something that she could work with. Though her shoulders fell when she realised that this meant that she would most likely be party to a kidnapping and possibly a certain amount of memory altering.

S

_Sara crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head as she continued to watch the woman pace back and forth in front of her._

_Ava had been acting weirdly all week, not really replying to her messages with full sentences and she hadn’t come over to the Waverider._

_The captain had rationalised that she was too busy was work, but now that she was in front of her, she couldn’t really deny that there was something going on with the woman. They had only been together for a few months, but Sara still felt her stomach turn that there was anything wrong with her girlfriend._

_“Aves?” She asked softly, “what’s up, baby?”_

_Ava stopped pacing and turned on her heels to look at the woman leaning against the captain’s desk and she blew out a breath as if she had just realised that she wasn’t alone._

_She opened and closed her mouth a couple times and then clenched her fists, finally she just shook her head and started pacing again._

_Sara frowned and walked over to the other woman to grab her arm and she pulled her over to the couch so that she could get her to sit down._

_“You’re making me nervous, Ava,” she said softly as she sat down and tucked a hair behind her ear._

_Ava relaxed slightly at the touch but she tensed as she remembered why it was that she had been avoiding Sara for the past week. She was so sure that this would destroy everything that they had built._

_She could see something like this happening for them in the future, but it would be way way in the future. In the present, she didn’t see this as something that Sara could possibly want._

_She started chewing nervously at her thumb’s nail, before she said, “I need to tell you something and it might ruin everything, but you deserve to know…”_

_“Aves, there’s nothing that can ruin this, you know that I love you…” Sara said and reached over to place her hand over the other woman’s. She may have been pretty new at this whole committed relationship thing, but she was pretty sure that she was getting good at it. Now that she could see how worried her girlfriend looked though, she was starting to second guess that._

_Things had been moving so fast with Ava that she hadn’t even stopped to think about the possibility that they might break up, but now she wasn’t so sure._

_Ava took another deep breath and decided that it would make sense if she just out and said it, it wasn’t as if she would be able to hide this soon._

_“I’m pregnant,” Ava replied close to a whisper._

_Sara whipped her hand away from her girlfriend’s and Ava felt a jolt in her stomach and she closed her eyes to try and hold back tears._

_“You’re pregnant?” Sara repeated. It wasn’t that she had ever actively thought about the possibility that Ava could be with another person, but she was fairly sure that if it was in the realms of possibility, she would be with someone capable of getting her unexpectedly pregnant._

_Ava nodded and continued to look at her lap._

_“That’s why you haven’t spoken me all week?” The captain asked, her nails were digging into her palm. She didn’t want to yell at Ava right now, but everything that she thought was going well was suddenly crashing down around her._

_Ava nodded and replied, “I was trying to figure out how it was possible…”_

_Sara drew her eyebrows together and said, “what do you mean ‘how it was possible’? Are you telling me that you don’t know how that works?”_

_The taller woman frowned as she began to detect increasing anger in the captain’s voice and what Sara was thinking suddenly crashed down on her. It never even occurred to her that Sara would think that she had cheated on her, but of course that would be the first thing that she would think right now._

_“No no no, I would never…I have never…” she stumbled as she tried to figure out what to say, before her mind finally settled on, “men are disgusting!”_

_Sara tilted her head. On the one hand, that did make sense based on everything that she knew about her girlfriend, but basic biology told another story, at least by 21st century standards._

_Ava let out a long breath and placed her hands over her face when she realised that Sara wasn’t going to say anything. This was going so much worse than she thought possible, how could her girlfriend think that she would ever cheat on her?_

_Without much warning, she felt tears start to stream out of her eyes and she kept her hands over her face as she allowed herself to cry out all of the anxiety she had felt since she’d received the news._

_Sara instantly felt all anger fall away and she moved over to Ava so that she could place an arm around her shoulder._

_Despite everything, she had never seen Ava cry and she didn’t like the sight, especially thinking that she had been the one to cause it._

_“Ava,” she said softly, “it’s okay…”_

_“It’s yours,” Ava replied._

_The other blonde drew her eyebrows together, though she still kept her arm on her shoulder. She was trying to figure out if she had heard the other woman correctly. She’d never considered the possibility that she would ever hear the news that she got another girl pregnant so she wasn’t exactly prepared to deal with this._

_“How?” Sara finally managed to force out._

_“Do you remember that mission to 2213?” Ava asked, though it was still muffled slightly by her hands._

_At first, Sara was shaking her head before her eyes widened when it occurred to her what they had done during that mission. Clearly when you use certain futuristic toys, you should check what they are actually for._

_“We’re having a baby?” Sara asked, though she was more testing out the words to see how they felt than actually asking._

_Ava pushed her face out of her hands so that she could look at the other woman’s expression and as expected, it was completely blank._

_“I know that this is a lot…” Ava said, “I’ll just go and you can call me later when you’ve had some time…”_

_She stood from the couch, determined to go and wait patiently in her office, but she was stopped when the captain grabbed her hand before she could touch her Time Courier._

_Sara looked up at her, looking more vulnerable than Ava had ever seen her._

_“Don’t go,” Sara said close to a whisper._

_“Okay…” Ava replied and fell back down to the couch._

_They both silently held hands for a few moments, before Sara shot up from the couch and released her hand._

_A part of her was sure that she should be arguing that this was impossible, but she believed Ava, so even though she was freaking out, it was clear what she needed to do. She knew that she could freak out for a while longer, but it felt like it would be a signifiant waste of time to do so._

_“Sara?” Ava said and the captain realised thats she must have been standing in front of her for a signifiant amount of time._

_She rocked on the balls of her feet and looked around the captain’s office for a few seconds, before she looked down at her hands and realised that she had exactly what she needed._

_Before she could change her mind, she removed the most expensive of the rings that she wore at all times and she dropped down onto one knee._

_She swallowed hard and held it up to her girlfriend and but when she opened her mouth,  no words came out._

_“Oh my god. Sara,” Ava said, suddenly seating up rim-rod straight, “you don’t have to just because…”_

_Sara shook her head and held up her free hand to silence her, hearing Ava trying to dissuade her somehow only made it more clear that this needed to happen, which made it easier to find words._

_“Ava, when I first met you, I thought that you were…just the worst….” Ava opened her mouth but Sara shook her head, telling her not to interrupt and she nodded for her to continue. “But when I got to know you, I found out just how amazing and loving you are. I know we’ve only been together for a few months, but I’ve never been so happy in my life and that’s all because of you. Even though I didn’t think it was possible that I could get you pregnant…and it will definitely take me time to figure everything out…I want you to know that I want this. So…will you marry me?”_

_Ava stared at her for a few moment. This was the last thing that she was expecting, but that didn’t stop the burst of pure happiness that was currently coursing through her entire system. However, this was also mixed with the worry that this would be something that Sara would regret soon._

_“I…I think that you need some more time to think about this…” Ava sighed, even though every muscle in her body was telling her that she should just say ‘yes’._

_“I don’t need time Aves,” Sara assured, “I need you to know that I’m all in here, I mean…we’ll probably get married anyway, right? So what’s the point in waiting?”_

_That was certainly another thing that she hadn’t expected to hear from Sara. She was making it all sound so simple, as if this wasn’t the first time that she had thought about the prospect of marrying her girlfriend of just over 12 weeks._

_Tears began to run down her cheeks again, though this time for another reason and she placed her hand over her mouth because she wasn’t sure that she would be able to form coherent words considering that Sara was currently saying such perfect things._

_It was for this reason that instead of saying yes, she just nodded with increasing vigour._

_A smile spread across Sara’s face and she leaned forward to slip the ring onto Ava’s finger and pulled her down for a kiss._

_When they finally pulled apart, Sara stared at the ring for a moment and said, “I’ll get you a real engagement ring…”_

Before Ava could reply, the sound of a door slamming caused Sara to shoot up and look around.

She blinked a couple times, when her consciousness began to clear, the doctor frowned when she realised that there was a certain amount of adrenaline running through her system as if she was ready to attack.

“Come on Lance, nap time is over,” Alexandra *Lexie* Danvers announced.

Sara fell back down to the on-call room’s lumpy mattress and groaned. It had been two days since she’d run into ‘dream girl’ outside of the cafe and she hadn’t really had a chance to think too much about it, apart from when she was asleep. The fact that her mind seemed to think that she had gotten her girlfriend pregnant only served to confirm the there was absolutely no chance that any of this could be real, even if she couldn’t get past the thought that she would love for Ava Sharpe to have her child.

“What do you want Lexie?” Sara sighed, her eyes were finally coming to terms with the fact that the light was now on, but that didn’t mean that she had to accept the fact that she would now have to be awake. Her friend barging in hardly counted as being paged.

“Your VIP is here, thought you’d want to meet her,” Lexie replied and crossed her arms as she leaned against the doorframe.

Sara groaned again, she’d voluntarily been on-call for the past 24 hours so a part of her had forgotten that the chief had asked her to take the case of his friend’s daughter.

Lexie just smirked at the exhausted woman and didn’t say anything else as she simply waited. There had been a time when she’d thought maybe there could be something more between the two of them, but since she had met a certain cop she knew that it wasn’t meant to be. However, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be friends and she was pretty sure that she was the person who knew Sara best behind her family.

It was for this reason that she had certainly noticed that the other doctor had been distracted over the last forty-eight hours and since she had always somehow remained unnaturally calm whilst practicing medicine, she could only assume that there was something personal going on with her.

Dr. Danvers had already resolved to pry later, but she figured that since she had never seen Sara act like this since they had met, she would allow the blonde a little more time to think over whatever was bothering her.

Sara finally pushed herself up from the mattress and grabbed her white coat from where it was hanging at the end of the bed. She deliberately didn’t look at her friend as she slipped her arms into the coat, she already had her sister asking her about her ‘dream girl’ all the time, so she had made an effort to make sure that no one at work would know that she felt like she was slowly losing her mind.

“Thanks Lex,” she mumbled as she walked past the other doctor who simply nodded in acknowledgement before the device at her hip began sounding off and she let out a heavy sigh.

“Well we don’t all get just one patient per shift,” she muttered, and slipped out of the room behind Sara who just rolled her eyes. Lexie was quite obviously slightly sleep deprived since she was sure that any other day, she would have been asked about a hundred questions about why she had been acting so strangely lately. It was only after a long stint in the ER that the other doctor became somewhat grumpy.

It was for this reason that Sara just turned on her heels and made her way to the wing of the hospital with the most expensive rooms.

It wasn’t long until she reached her destination and grabbed the chart that was in the slot outside the door and she pushed her way in whilst flipping through it.

She drew her eyebrows together at the unfamiliar name and said, “Zari Tomaz?”

The doctor looked up from the chart to see the woman in the bed staring at her with wide eyes.

She decided to just chalk this up to the fact that she was scared about being in hospital and she said, “my name is Doctor Lance, Doctor Thompson has asked me to take a special interest in your case.”

Zari just nodded and waited for the alternate Sara to look away from her and prove Amaya’s theory that not all of her memories were gone.

It only took a second for her to look over to the collection of people crowded in the room and the chart slipped from her hands when her gaze fell onto ‘Dream Girl’ staring back at her almost hopefully.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

The clatter of the chart against the ground was the only sound in the room as every Legend stared at their alternate captain with their mouths slightly agape.

It didn't escape their notice that she somehow looked younger (though to be fair, none of them was quite sure of their exact ages).

But age aside, there was a stark difference between Captain Lance and Doctor Lance.

Zari glanced over to Ava to check how she was doing and shifted on the insanely comfortable bed (she was so grateful that Gideon had so easily been able to trick the system into believing she was a VIP patient, this was much better than the plan of landing herself in the ER, which would have most likely been painful knowing her team).

Ava was outwardly wearing a blank expression but Zari could tell that she was feeling so many emotions at once.

After all, who wouldn't be freaked out by seeing an alternate version of the love of their life?

Sara was undoubtedly different in a timeline in which she achieved her childhood dream of becoming a doctor, but Zari had a feeling that if her reaction to Ava was anything to go by, her psyche may not be as different as they first thought.

However, she couldn't exactly voice these thoughts when she had no idea how much Sara knew about the timeline that they needed to get back to.

It was for this reason that instead of saying anything, Zari just turned her gaze back over to the doctor who was currently gazing at Ava.

When this didn't work, Zari cleared her throat and Sara tore her eyes away from 'Dream Girl' and it crashed upon her that she wasn't sleeping and enjoying glimpses of another (strange) life.

She was in a patient's room, a VIP patient's room no less.

She shouldn't be staring at said patient's friend whilst she should be asking about symptoms so as not to incur the wrath of the chief who he had specifically asked her to look after.

Doctor Lance cleared her throat and leaned down to pick up the chart, "sorry about that…" she said, now starting to flip through the information in her hands rather than looking at her dream fiancé. She'd already noticed that she wasn't wearing a ring so she was trying to tell herself that was proof hat she was obviously imagining things.

The most logical explanation was that she must have seen the woman at some point and her mind had fabricated some elaborate, time-travel riddled, narrative. But that still left the distinct possibility that she obviously had some connection to her.

However, right now, she couldn't allow herself to think about true love or soulmates, this woman surely wouldn't be interested in her if she was a shitty doctor, right?

"Okay…so you've been experiencing headaches?" Sara asked.

Zari nodded, casting her mind back to the list of symptoms that Gideon had given her. Apparently she had made it just complicated enough so that they could stay for a whole, but not enough to warrant exploratory surgery.

"Yeah, for a few months," Zari replied.

Sara nodded and looked around the room at all but one person and said, "okay I just need to do some quick checks, would you all mind waiting outside for a while?"

Nate looked like he was about to refuse, but he was nudged by Ray, who was silently telling him that it wasn't exactly a question they could say no to.

"Sure, we'll be right back," Amaya announced and started ushering everyone out of the room, which involved slipping her arm into Ava's to pull her away from Doctor Lance.

Sara couldn't help but narrow her eyes at the motion, but the sound of the door clicking into place snapped her out of the temporary bout of jealousy.

"Okay, I just need to do some quick checkups, Z," Sara said as she began pulling her gloves on, before a frown pulled her lips down when it occurred to her what she had just said.

"Sorry, I meant Miss Tomaz, not sure where that came from…"

"It's okay, you can call me Z as long as I can call you…" the totem-bearer trailed off, trying to remember whether the doctor had ever said her first name.

Luckily, she had stopped herself just in time as Doctor Lance and supplied, "Sara."

Zari nodded and Sara continued to prepare her routine checkup, she was more than relieved because she was fairly certain that she wouldn't be able to call the captain 'Doctor Lance."

s

[Meanwhile in the waiting room]

"That's so weird, she was almost…professional," Wally said, with an almost disgusted look on his face. Sara might have looked younger and lighter, but he still maintained that Sara was more suited to being an ex-assassin, vigilante time captain.

"You call that professional?" Ray asked, mimicking the action of dropping the chart.

"Well at least we know for sure that she knows something," Nate said.

"But if she remembers, why didn't she just tell us?" Ray asked.

"Maybe she doesn't want to go back?" Ava finally said, having had been staring at the ground with Amaya's arm still slipped into hers. The totem bearer seemed to understand that she needed the support.

Outside the cafe she wasn't completely sure since the moment was so short-lived, but now the familiarity was undeniable. So it raised major questions as to why Sara wouldn't just come right out and say that she knew what was going on.

However, her suggestion was met with a chorus of disagreement from the Legends and Ava went back to looking at the ground. Of course, they would try and reassure her that her fiancé wasn't pretending to forget her.

In any other circumstances, Ava would have been inclined to agree with them, but now she could see that Sara had everything that she ever wanted pre-Gambit.

It wasn't like becoming a time travelling former assassin was ever part of her plans, maybe it was just better that she never met Oliver Queen?

"If she remembers, there is absolutely no way that she wouldn't say something to you, Ava," Nate said, "she loves you and the future 'lil captain, as soon as we figure out what's going on, she'll jump at the chance to go back home."

It logically made sense.

Ava knew that Sara loved her, but there was the chance in this timeline that she could have everything. In fact, they could probably get together and potentially have a child together in the future, if not for the factor of time folding in on itself if Sara never broke it.

Finally, Ava cleared her throat and looked back up at the team. She figured it wouldn't be particularly productive to argue her theories right now, she would just go along with whatever plan they came up with and hope that she would be proven wrong.

"Okay, so she doesn't completely remember, but there's definitely something there," Ray announced by way of bypassing Ava's doubts whilst Amaya squeezed her arm in reassurance.

"Maybe she remembers some things but she doesn't know they're memories?"

"Is that possible?" Wally asked with a furrowed brow.

"Well…she's been time-travelling for years so it stands to reason that her mind wouldn't be affected in the same way as everyone else's. We remembered almost instantly, but we were in the Temporal Zone," Ray pondered.

Nate boded in agreement while the rest just stared at him, fully prepared to just accept whatever theories came up with.

"So, we just need to keep hanging around to see if we can trigger any memories?" Nate asked, though they all knew that 'we' mostly meant Ava. If Sara was having trouble believing whatever form of memories were coming to her, then it made sense that she would be more willing to believe her memories with Ava first. Their relationship had been the closest thing to normal in her life after all.

"Well Gideon said that the tests should take a week and everyone her thinks that the VIP patient is Zari thanks to Wally," Ray said and nodded at the speedster who had used the flasher to make sure that anyone who knew the VIP who they had cured now believed that she was always Zari, "so we have plenty of time to find out what happened and fix the anachronism."

Everyone nodded to the plan and Ava felt Amaya squeeze her arm again in reassurance that this would work.

It was definitely the reassurance that she needed, though she wasn't sure that it was working.

s

_Laughter filled the table as Ava recounted the story of how she and Sara met,_

_Sara was surprised that her parents weren't more concerned at the statement 'I knew I liked her when she saved me from the sabre tooth tiger' but she was still smiling through the whole story._

_It may not have been long since she and the then Agent Sharpe had hated each other, but it felt like a lifetime ago._

_The captain was acutely aware of the temporary ring that Ava was wearing around her neck on a chain (she'd agreed to start wearing it on her finger when they had officially revealed the big news to the two most important people in Sara's life outside of the Waverider)._

_It wasn't exactly the kind of news that Sara expected to reveal to her parents on their first meeting with Ava, but they were kind of on a time limit now that there was a growing baby involved._

_She didn't exactly want to wait until the day that she introduced them to their granddaughter to also announce their engagement._

_She figured that it made more sense to get everything out of the way in one meal._

_Why not introduce your 'girlfriend', announce a pregnancy and an engagement in the course of a couple of hours?_

_However, this also meant that there was a lot riding on their first impression._

_It wasn't that it would mean the end of their relationship if her parents reacted badly to anything that went down that night, but it would be so nice if they were okay with everything._

_Ava was already a part of her Waverider family and if her parents also loved her then everything would be perfect, especially since she was fairly certain that she was going to need Quentin and Dinah to help her raise an actual person._

_Sara's train of thought came to an end when she felt a hand rest on her bouncing knee and she looked over to see her fiancé easily continuing to talk while she squeezed her thigh reassuringly._

_"So after the bureau and Legends started playing nice, we realised we didn't actually hate each other and Sara asked me on a date," Ava finished her story._

_"A date that went terribly," Sara added._

_"It was fine until your team crashed the ship," Ava retorted._

_"In their defence, they really though they could handle the pirates," Sara shot back, while moving her hand under the table to cover Ava's effort so show her appreciation._

_"They crashed the Waverider?" Dinah asked, trying to resist the urge to grill the two time-travellers before her. Whatever they said would only skew her research, which wouldn't be helpful considering she couldn't exactly cite the Time Bureau or the Legends of Tomorrow._

_Sara shrugged and nodded, "everything was fine and they even got the Earth Totem and I got a girlfriend."_

_Quentin watched Sara carefully as she said the word 'girlfriend' and a smile spread across his face. He hadn't seen her look so light and happy since she left all those years ago but she did seem to be holding something back, almost as if there was something else that she wanted to call Ava._

_The conversation between the four of them continued, mostly discussing the Legends latest missions, and Sara asked what was going on in her parents' lives while she had been away._

_Finally, all the food was gone and they were dangerously close to wrapping up._

_Ava had agreed that Sara could tell them in whatever way she was most comfortable with and that it didn't matter if it didn't happen tonight, but Sara was determined._

_It wasn't that she was in any way ashamed of having a baby with Ava, it was just that she would rather her parents be okay with it and Ava knew that._

_Quentin finished putting all of the dishes in the kitchen and he clapped his hands together as he said, "it was so great to meet you Ava."_

_Ava smiled brightly at this. She'd been more than nervous about this but had decided to hide this from Sara who was clearly one second from becoming an emotional wreck._

_She didn't have any family other than Gary since she left home and had long since given up on seeking approval. This was different though since she knew that Quentin and Dinah Lance were so much more accepting than her parents, so it would have hurt more if they were in any way against their relationship._

_Ava stood and slipped her hand into Sara's as she smiled at the older Lances._

_Sara was silent for a moment when her mom gave Ava an one-armed hug and Quentin followed suit._

_They were about to do the same to their daughter but they were cut short when Sara announced, "Ava's pregnant!"_

_Ava's eyebrows shot up, that wasn't what she was expecting but she supposed there was no natural way to bring it up._

_"Ava's...pregnant?" Quentin repeated._

_His mind was running through the possible explanation. Did she cheat? Was she pregnant before they got together? Did they use a sperm donor? But that would mean it was planned and Sara had told them that they'd only been together for a few months so that didn't seem very likely._

_"And the baby's mine," Sara added when she realised that they were probably thinking similarly to how she did when Ava first told her._

_"H-how?" Dinah asked. It was clear that her ex-husband couldn't form words._

_"The short answer is future tech," Sara replied, not very interested in detailing exactly what happened._

_When they didn't say anything, she decided to go all in and added, "we're also engaged."_

_Quentin and Dinah nodded slowly. They were both currently taking the information in but neither of them looked particularly angry._

_Ava looked away from them to Sara. Right now, she looked more vulnerable than she'd seen her. She looked very much like a child terrified of whatever their parents would say next._

_Sara squeezed her fiancé's hand tightly and said, "please say something..."_

_"We're going to have a grand kid?" Quentin asked._

_"Pretty sure it will be a granddaughter," Sara replied, every muscle in her body relaxed when she noticed that glint in her father's eyes whenever he was excited about something. Her mother also had a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, though she was clearly still processing the fact that it was possible that her daughter could get her girlfriend pregnant by accident._

_"We're going to have a granddaughter," Quentin repeated as if he needed the clarification, though he was already imagining what a mix of Sara and Ava would look like._

_Sara nodded in confirmation._

_Ava continued to bite the inside of her cheek as she inspected their reactions they didn't seem to be disgusted, they were just processing which was fairly understandable._

_The time for processing seemed to have passed, however, when Ava felt a pair of arms engulf her and she squeezed Sara's hand as the pair also brought her into the group hug._

_Sara visibly let out a breath of relief and when her parents pulled back and she asked rather vulnerably, "so you're okay with this?"_

_Quentin looked over to his ex-wife to make sure that she agreed with him and he then said, "it's definitely unexpected...but you seem really happy so of course we're okay."_

_Dinah nodded in agreement and a huge smile spread across her face before something occurred to her and she asked, "can I have grandma's ring?"_

"Doctor Lance?"

Sara blinked and looked over to the radiography technician who was trying to get her attention to tell her that Zara's MRI was done.

She frowned for a moment when it occurred to her that this was the first time she had blanked out while awake.

She was running out of ways to rationalise what was happening in her mind, but right now, she had bigger things to focus on.

Like her job.

"Sorry," she mumbled and leaned forward to the screen and tried to focus on reading the scan.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five

_"Hannah," Ava announced as she made her way over to the captain's bed._

_"Vito," Sara replied without looking away from the screen on her lap._

_"You've vito-ed the last ten names," Ava sighed as she slipped into the bed and peered over her shoulder at the screen._

_"Sorry Aves, I'm still looking at venues," the captain replied and turned to place a chaste kiss to her lips and then looked back to the screen to click through the pictures._

_"Vito," Ava mumbled and placed her head on the other woman's shoulder._

_"Why?" Sara asked indignantly and gestured towards the screen as if it would somehow make the director change her mind._

_"I'm not getting married in a barn, babe," Ava replied and reached over to close the device. It has been a long day and she had been hoping for a couple hours talking with Sara, she wasn't really in the mood for wedding planning so discussing potential names seemed like it would be a pretty good night when she was too tired to do anything else._

_Sara placed the laptop on the ground before she slipped her arm around the director's waist and pulled her closer while she used her other hand to rest on her stomach._

_"You know, I was kind hoping for the 'I would marry you anywhere' kind of engagement," Sara mumbled as she breathed in everything that was Ava Sharpe._

_"I will marry you anywhere, just not in a barn," Ava replied._

_Sara hummed and said, "it's obvious that you don't want to talk wedding tonight, so what do you want to talk about?"_

_"You haven't used any of your name suggestions yet…" Ava replied and shrugged. She knew that they should probably get on planning their wedding but it didn't really feel like it was a priority when they hadn't even set a date yet._

_Sara brought her bottom lip into her mouth. She did have a name in mind but she didn't want to bring it up until she'd had a chance to talk to her parents. They'd already agreed to her idea (with a fair amount of tears) earlier at lunch so there was no reason that she couldn't bring it up now._

_However, she wasn't sure what she would do if her fiancé disagreed._

_Ava brought her head away from the captain's shoulder and inspected her expression._

_It wasn't often that Captain Lance looked cautious._

_"What's wrong?" Ava asked softly._

_Sara took a moment to look at the expression on the director's face and she realised that it was ridiculous to be afraid to ask this woman anything. There was a reason that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with her._

_"So…I've been thinking for a while…but I needed to ask my parents before I brought it up…" Sara said rather ramble-y._

_Ava's lips formed an 'o' as it occurred to her what the other woman was thinking and she brought her hand up to rest on Sara's that was on her stomach._

_"You want to name her Laurel?" she asked._

_Sara nodded and replied, "my parents were really happy about it, but I told them I needed to ask you before it was final…so…what do you think?"_

_Ava smiled when Sara finally made eye contact with her again, looking more vulnerable than she would ever be outside this room._

_"I think that I would be honoured to name our daughter Laurel," Ava replied._

_Sara's vulnerable look fell away and she leaned over to place her lips against her fiancé's, very much hoping that it revealed just how much this meant to her._

_She leaned back and her head fell onto the taller woman's shoulder and she felt the hand still on the swollen stomach being squeezed._

_Sara swallowed hard and she said in close to a whisper, "I really wish that she could have met you…"_

_Ava tilted her head back so that she could get a better look at the captain's face and she smiled sadly at her. She'd heard all about Laurel and she'd often imagine how it would have gone if she had actually had the chance to meet her._

_"I wish I could have met her too," Ava replied and reached up to wipe the stray tear away from her fiancé's cheek and something occurred to her as she added, "I'm really sorry that she won't be at the wedding."_

_Sara turned and buried her face in Ava's neck and took in a shaky breath. Of course Ava would know exactly what it was that was bothering her in that moment._

_However, a smile spread across her face for a second and she turned her head back and she looked down at her hand on Ava's stomach._

_"Well…at least I know now that there will be a Laurel at our wedding…" she said with a little laugh._

The sound of trays hitting the table brought Sara back to reality and she managed to school her features as Lexie and Laurel slid into the cafeteria chairs.

Internally, however, she was considering why it was in this alternate reality that she would name her child after her sister and why said sister wouldn't be able to come to her wedding. There was only reason that she could think of, but she was choosing to not dwell on it.

Whatever this little narrative in her mind was, it was empirically impossible so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to spend too much time thinking about it.

Instead, she tried to focus on whatever conversation her friend and sister, who sometimes inexplicably chose to have lunch at a hospital, were currently having.

"Tommy Merlyn is pretty hot," Lexie replied to whatever Laurel had just said.

"I don't know, Mayor Queen is...just wow," the lawyer shot back.

Sara drew her eyebrows together as the two women slipped into their seats and she asked, "why are you talking about millionaires?"

"Because if we married a millionaire our lives would be easier," Laurel shrugged and handed Sara the sandwich that she had asked her to get for her.

Doctor Lance looked over to Doctor Danvers sceptically and said, "does your girlfriend know that you've been fantasising about rich guys?"

"Does Lexie know that you've built an imaginary relationship with coffee shop girl?" Laurel interjected with a smirk before Lexie could say that her and Maggie were secure enough for these conversations to be fine.

Lexie's response died on her tongue and her expression turned into a similar smirk to the lawyer across the table and she looked over to her friend, "coffee shop girl? What aren't you telling me Lance?"

Sara rolled her eyes and looked over to her sister as she asked, "why are you calling her coffee shop girl now?"

"Well I know that she exists now so I can't call her 'Dream Girl' anymore," Laurel replied with a shrug.

"How do you know that Ava Sharpe is actually Dream Girl?" Sara asked, but her eyes widened when she realised that she had made a mistake.

"Oh my god you know that is actually her name! Did you run into her again?!" Laurel asked, practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect that her little sister had finally found someone who she could be happy with. It always surprised her that the doctor had such a hard time in her personal life considering everything that she had going for her, but it seemed like she finally had the chance to get everything that she wanted. It was so obvious that the woman outside the coffee shop had to be dream girl based on Sara's reaction to her and it made some sense that Sara could have seen her around town and somehow learned her name and her brain concocted the weird story so that she could work through her attraction to the stranger.

"Okay, I am very confused," Lexie interrupted Sara before she could start explaining how she knew Ava's name.

Sara opened her mouth to explain everything, but she closed her mouth when it occurred to her that she didn't really want to get into this right now. She had yet to tell her sister that she had started having these 'fake' memory flashes when she was awake. She also hadn't worked up the courage to tell her how happy she was during these memories and she wasn't sure that she could now that she knew that she was potentially this happy in a life without Laurel in it.

Thankfully, the sound of beeping at her hip gave her the opportunity she needed to escape. Sara looked down at her pager and the same time that Lexie looked down at her own only to find that there was nothing on it.

"I'll be right back," Sara said quickly, "feel free to explain it to her so I don't have to."

The blonde doctor sped away before Lexie could point out that the page wasn't urgent.

S

-Meanwhile-

"Hey, can I talk to you?"

Ava looked up from the book she had been trying (and failing) to read for a while now. The current plan surprisingly involved a lot of waiting around and the team had to wait for Doctor Lance to come to them with test results.

The rest of the team were in the room with Zari as they all passed the time but Ava had slipped out hoping that no one would notice and she sat in one of the chairs lined up by the nurse's station. Being with the team that she was supposedly the captain of only served to remind her that there was a chance that they would never get their actual captain back. Even if she knew that they needed to Sara to break time, she had been considering the possibility that there could be some way around that and that Sara could stay in this timeline.

Of course her plan to hide hadn't worked because Amaya would obviously want to check and make sure that she was okay. As Sara's best friend, she was pretty sure that Amaya was duty bound to make sure that her fiancé was okay when she wasn't available to do so.

"Sure," Ava replied instead of saying that she would rather be left alone. She originally thought that being left alone would make her feel better, but apparently she had gotten too used to having someone to talk to for that to actually work.

Amaya sat down next to her and smiled as Ava closed the book and looked at her expectantly.

"Are you okay?" The totem-bearer asked after a moment of silence.

The director frowned at her lap as she considered her response. It would be easy to say that she was fine and to just continue waiting for something to happen, but that seemed somewhat pointless. She had already admitted her worries to the group earlier so it didn't make sense to pretend that their reassurances had actually worked.

"Say that Sara doesn't remember me or is having memory flashes or whatever...what will happen if we fix everything and she realises that I'm the reason that her sister is dead again?" Ava admitted without looking at the other woman.

"Ava," Amaya said softly with a little sigh, she hadn't even considered the fact that Sara could remember this timeline when they fixed the anachronism, but she figured that she probably would so Ava's worries at least had some basis, however, there was clearly something that the other woman was not considering. "Sara understands how important it is to protect the timeline and she accepted that she can't save Laurel a long time ago. I saw how hard that was for her, but I've also seen how happy she is when she's with you and planning her future with you."

Ava continued to look at her lap as she tried to think of a way to refute Amaya's claims, but it was hard to deny how well this woman knew Sara.

Amaya inspected the director and smiled sadly when she didn't notice any discernible change in her mood. It appeared as thought the only way to make her feel better about this entire situation was for her to get Captain Lance back and for things to go back to how things used to be.

Before she could try and think of another thing to say, the totem-bearer's eyes widened slightly as she saw a certain doctor approaching the nurse's station. Ava sensed the change almost immediately and followed her line of sight over to see Sara leaning over the desk and being handed a chart for her to sign.

The nurse laughed at whatever the doctor said as she handed the signed form back over to her and Sara turned around to go back to wherever she had come from.

Sara's steps faltered, however, when she laid eyes on the two women who appeared to be unable to tear their gaze away from her. Usually, she wouldn't be too surprised to find relatives looking at her intently, especially when they were waiting for test results, but this time felt different.

She also felt the familiar jealousy flare up as she inspected how close the two of them were sat together. It shouldn't bother her that her dream girl was potentially already in a relationship with someone, but the fact that she could see herself sitting in bed with that woman planning their wedding and choosing baby names made her feel another level of jealousy that had no rationality at all behind it.

Amaya took a moment to inspect the 'deer caught in headlights' look on the doctor's face and she felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips when she realised that the blonde was looking almost entirely at Ava. There was definitely something there and she was sure that Sara wouldn't have that look on her face if she fully remembered everything that she meant to her.

The totem bearer was about to end the awkward staring by asking if the results had come back, but before she could even consider how to formulate the question, Sara felt a soft tug on her scrub pants and she looked down to see a little blonde girl looking up at her hopefully.

"Claire?" Sara asked and she instantly kneeled down so that she was on the same level as the seven year-old, "you know you shouldn't be out of your room by yourself."

"My mom went to find me some juice," the little patient explained, "she's been gone for ages and I got scared by myself..."

"Yeah it can be pretty scary here," Sara replied, quickly doing some checks to make sure that the girl wasn't about to pass out from being out of bed when she shouldn't, "how about we go and find your mom so you can get back into bed?"

Claire nodded instantly and her face split into a toothy smile after being scared for a good twenty minutes, she had obviously also been afraid that the doctor would tell her off for explicitly disregarding what she had been told to do. She leaned forward to place her arms around Sara's shoulders so that the doctor could pick her up.

Doctor Lance shot Ava one last look as she stood up with the girl held tightly in her arms and she turned back to the nurse at the station to say, "I'm just taking Claire to the cafeteria to look for her mom, can you page me if she comes back while we're gone?"

The nurse nodded in understanding and Sara began walking away with Claire clinging tightly to her with her thumb in her mouth.

Once she was out of ear shot, Amaya turned to Ava and asked, "you okay?"

Ava tore her attention away from the doctor's retreating form and simply replied, "she's going to be an amazing mother."


End file.
